Posts Categorised: Online Business Model

“Find a hungry market and give them what they want.”

No, you are not going to sell food! You have to find out a large group of people who has a pressing need, people who are hungry for something.

Research the market for a strong NEED

People love to buy, but they don’t want to be sold to. If the need is not pressing enough, you can’t be sure if they will buy your product. If you are not sure enough, you run the risk of losing your invested money and time.

What is the indication of a pressing need?

If the need is painful physically or mentally without a solution, the solution is required urgently. Nobody wants to endure pain for the sake of money, so it is a strong need for people to spend their money on finding a solution to this problem.

A passionate need is something people will spend money for. People are controlled by emotion, not by logic. When driven by a passionate need, people will be ready to spend money again and again. Somebody with a passion for golf keeps spending on golf clubs or lessons on golf.

When people are obsessed with something or some habit they are forced by their own nature to take action. This is negative need, but for a business owner they are an asset.

The group should be large enough to make the venture profitable. So, crunch your numbers before you think of investing on such an idea.

Research the market for a better SOLUTION

Now is the time for understanding the full scope of the need and the nature of the solution. A good market research will give us the expectations of the customer and the other products available in the market. You don’t want to just give your market the exact same product as the competitors are delivering to the customers. You want to make your product unique – and you want to make it better. So your next step is to research the competitors’ products to discover how you can improve upon the products the market is already buying.

Create the SOLUTION

Now, it is time for some action.

Create an outline for the steps you will cover and set a deadline. Approach the task from the generals to the particulars.

Shut the ringer off on your phones, lock the door, close your email… and start typing. Start with an outline and a goal to write XXXX of words per day. Then keep typing until you finish your ebook – don’t worry about editing, because you can do that once the draft is finished.

Quick Tip: If you don’t like to type, then try a voice-to-text product like Dragon Naturally Speaking. If creating the product doesn’t sound like something you want to do yourself, then outsource the task.

Set up your MARKETPLACE(website)

In any offline business, we create a presentable space to store your goods. In web terms we have to set up an attractive website for your customers to visit and buy from. The site should be properly functional and appealing.

You need to write a sales letter that sells your ebook and upload it to a web page. You’ll also want to set up a squeeze page with an autoresponder as a means to get your visitors to join your newsletter list. This is important, because most people won’t buy your ebook the first time they visit your site – the money is in your list!

Set up your backend sales system

Most people don’t get rich selling just one product. Instead, they find their wealth is hidden in the backend of their business – this is where existing customers buy more products and more expensive products from you. As such, even as you create your first product, you need to also be developing your backend sales system. You should set up various ways to contact and pitch additional products to your existing customers, such as by email, postal mail, membership site forums, blogs or even through links in the products they’ve already purchased.

And there you have it – the essential five-steps to a successful online business.

Building an online business is no different than any other offline business. You have to provide value to your customers in exchange for the money they pay you.

That value is generally in terms of goods, services or a combination of both.

When you start an online business, you can follow the same business model. You can provide goods and services online or offline in exchange for the money you charge. You can follow any of the following models.

The 3 basic online business models

Online goods/services to global customers.

Online goods/services to local customers.

Offline goods/services to local customers where you use internet to market your business.

Though all these three types of businesses seem similar, the third one is merely an offline business entity using online services either to attract customers to its business or to build brand equity. This model is not truly an online business.

True online business model

The true essence of an online business is in its online nature. In such a business the goods, services or both exist online and the customers pay you for using it or accessing the information. They may also download the product from your website, which may be a software, an ebook, videos or audio tracks or something similar of value. The services you provide can also be located in an online server, which is accessible to your customer, 24/7, and they pay you for the services you provide them.

Advantages of an online business model

The advantage of this business model is that you create the product once and keep selling copies of it again and again in exchange for good money. The software or service you provide mostly demands an onetime investment and keeps giving you return again and again. Information products or membership sites are good examples of this. You may have to spend little money on maintaining your website or on domain and hosting expenses, but comparing to the return you receive this investment is very negligible.

Anything, which has the potential of being a good product/service is basically a solution to a pressing or passionate need. People who buy your product actually buy a solution. So, before we can develop any product we have to find out a need first then finding the exact solution is just child’s play.

Any online business “Product development process” must include all the essential market research first before investing valuable assets on final product development.